'Disgusting troll' Chloe Madeley hits back at Twitter tormenters who stalk her
CHLOE Madeley yesterday hit back at internet trolls who threatened to rape her after her mother Judy Finnigan’s controversial comments on a TV show.
One vile Tweet aimed at Chloe read: “Judy’s given me her blessing to rape you. Naturally, I have to acquire a paper bag first. It’s not to suffocate you with or to hide one’s identity, it’s to cover up your rat-like face with the humongous nose.”
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It is just outrageous that people are being as menacing and vile towards Chloe in that way
Her father Richard Madeley, 58, later said he had alerted police to the attacks aimed at his daughter.
Describing her “shocking violation” Chloe told how she received the message when she woke up and checked her phone in bed.
She said: “This week I was confronted by a man who said he was going to rape me. “He didn’t leap out, knife in hand, from a dark alleyway to issue the chilling threat. He didn’t sidle up to me in a nightclub or a pub and whisper it in my ear.
“Instead, he cowered anonymously behind his computer screen and sent me the vile threat through Twitter, the social media forum used by more than 270 million people around the world.
“Through the site, his lewd, disturbing messages reached me in my own house, indeed in my own bed, as I checked my mobile phone as soon as I woke up.
“In what should be a safe and private space his words were a shocking violation.”
Describing the impact of the threat she said: “Insulting, threatening, violent – the words horrified me. When I told my mother she was even more upset and unsettled.
“As I read out the rape threat tweets, her face fell. I may be 27, but I’m still her little girl, and she was appalled at the vicious brutality of total strangers toward me.”
Chloe told how she was used to abuse on the internet.
She said: “I probably receive a really nasty tweet, one which pushes the boundaries of taste and decency, at least once a month, and I’ve been a member of Twitter for at least five years. I’m not alone in that: trolls plague Twitter, and lately rape threats have become a regular weapon.
“For me the insults usually focus on my looks, my figure and my family - all highly emotive, personal subjects you’d never dream of criticising to someone’s face.
“The trolls make disgusting remarks about the way my family looks, the way we talk. Some have even suggested we are incestuous. I’ve been called ‘fat’ and ‘disgusting’. I’ve been told that I look ‘deformed’ and like ‘half man, half-horse’.”
Chloe added: “I always ignore the disgusting troll tweets I get because I honestly do not want to give them any attention but the tweet in question took it to another level and I wanted to stand up against it this time.”
Her mother sparked a public backlash when she suggested former Welsh international Evans, 25, should be allowed to return to his former club Sheffield United on his release from prison because the victim was “drunk” and the rape was “not violent”.
Earlier this week Judy, 66, clarified her position in the Daily Express saying: “Do I defend Ched Evans’s despicable behaviour on the night in question in any way whatsoever? No I categorically do not.
“Did I say that the fact his victim was drunk in a hotel was a mitigating factor? No. I did not suggest that it provided a scintilla of justification for his appalling actions.”
Evans, 25, was jailed for five years in 2012 after raping a 19-year-old woman at a hotel near Rhyl, Denbig, and is due to be released this week..
Last month a man who abused Labour MP Stella Creasy over the site, threatening to rape and murder her, was jailed for 18 weeks.